In response to the terrible series of events unfolding in Japan I ask that we all pray for the people who are suffering and have lost loved ones, that in their time of loss and devastation God brings them comfort and hope; also for those who are working to resolve the problems at the nuclear power plants at Fukushima, that God brings them guidance and assistance.
As I read the reports I am becoming more frustrated at the apparent lack of forethought and the typically disingenuous and evasive reporting by the Japanese government to try to play down the extent of the unfolding catastrophe. Flawed Location and Planning In spite of the fact that the reactor plants were built in the
1960's, and at least one of them was due to be decommissioned last month, it defies logic and common sense that the Japanese would build their nuclear reactors on the edge of the Pacific shelf on the line of the
"Ring of Fire" (a line following the edge of the Pacific plate known to have a high number of earthquakes and
volcanoes); one would think they would have a better contingency plan in the event of a meltdown than to simply try to flood the container vessels with sea water!
That is just turning each container vessel into a boiling kettle with a hot element which is spewing out highly radioactive
vapors through all the blown coolant pipes! Playing down reports Yesterday Japanese officials were saying that it's unlikely that the problem will become as bad as Chernobyl in the
1980's!
Today after a third plant has blown they're admitting: "The situation is getting worse by the hour.
We haven't hit bottom yet". Doctor Michio Kaku, a physicist, continued:
"We now have reports that unit 3 suffered perhaps a 90 percent uncovering of the core
— this is unprecedented since Chernobyl".
Yesterday it was already as bad as Chernobyl as two plants had blown their cooling systems exposing the molten nuclear fuel inside to the outside air through the blown coolant pipes.
It was the melting down of the fuel rods that plasmerised the coolant into separate
hydrogen and oxygen atoms causing the explosions.
By not being straight with the public valuable time is being wasted when more of the local population could have been evacuated sooner. Why are the Japanese wasting time?
Did no one learn anything from Chernobyl?
The Japanese nuclear officials should be sealing the reactors with concrete not pouring sea water on them that will boil off carrying away more radioactive Plutonium, Uranium, Caesium, and Iodine into the atmosphere!
Once these radio-isotopes get into the Gulf Stream traces of them will be spread around the whole world.
The cooling systems for three nuclear reactors have blown up and the heavy water boiled away.
The reactors may be a foot thick but the coolant pipes are now open to the air, after meltdown the Highly Radioactive nuclear fuel will start (or already is) boiling and more radioactive
vapor will release into the atmosphere! Caesium-137 has a half life of 30.17 years and Plutonium-239 has a half life of 24,200 years and is chemically the most poisonous of all the actinides!
Nuclear power seems to be a cheap power source with no pollutants (except for the waste which is buried and allowed to decay for hundreds of years into harmless elements)
— that is until something goes wrong!
These isotopes are so nasty that it is insanity to even collect and enrich them let alone fire neutrons at them!!!
I'm mortified that over 20,000 people lost their lives in Japan on Friday, yet for Millions more the pain has only begun!
A natural disaster has taken its toll, for those people have now played their role in God’s plan and I pray that God will lift his countenance upon them; we now face a man-made catastrophe that may yet affect the world and test us all.
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Matt 7:13-14 NRSV "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy
that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.
For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find
it". cf. Luke 13:24. Archbishop Michael-John Anlaby, East Riding of Yorkshire, England,
GB Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction!
The 19-mile exclusion zone around Fukushima dai-ichi is merely a public relations exercise now as people have potentially been exposed to radioactive fall-out for four days, yet now the fall-out could stretch for hundreds of miles.
In spite of the risks from the intense radiation 50 Ukrainian workers lost their lives in 1986 as they heroically worked to seal the Chernobyl reactor with concrete.
The Japanese workers ran out of options and have done nothing but pour sea water on the reactors in a futile attempt to cool them
down; as soon as the radioactivity increased, officials temporarily evacuated the nuclear power station leaving it to boil and release
vapors! Why aren’t they sealing the reactors with concrete?
Don’t they care that there’s an excursion of nuclear material being released into the environment?
Surely they’re not hoping to be able to repair and reuse these reactor plants!
There is a 1,000-foot-high radioactive cloud over Fukushima at the moment!
This would not be happening if the Japanese officials had accepted the inevitable once the cooling systems had blown and sealed them under 30
feet of concrete.
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Mt Rev Dr Brian B Michael-John Mackenzie-Hanson, BA (Hons), DD, MIOP, acOSB
Arian Catholic Archbishop - Primus Inter Pares
Primate Archbishop for York, Northern England, and Scotland
Holy Arian, Catholic & Apostolic Church |